notes: in the original version, his full name is used. i dont want him to google himself and find this, so it's been omitted.

SKARS

sword in the maidenhead
that's me that's me that's you
sword of exactly you
and insincerity
it has your grin wrapped all around it
and silver laughter in the dark.

pierce pierce beautiful
sword in the meat of girl girl
in the middle
blood on the bedsheets: you
paper skin and grin, silver
crackle like electricity
boy.

we are all smoking cigarettes
i'm feeding you the soft white stuff of my insides
you are burning holes in your chest
you are loving to carve those parts
hard burning cherry pressed between your ribs
smolder inside you
grin in the dark
the sharp shining of teeth and sucked-in breath.

boy boy eaten from the inside
angel food cake of the heart
lymph nodes like soap and candy
devoured
and grin, prong sharp
imploding with ash-gray bones to
make a temple of boy
boy: temple of nothing.

temple of ash and sour spirits
made of skars and sin
stumble down the block in red
matchstick legs a boy burning down the street.

burn holes in your chest
burn right through the boy
through all the thin you are still there
flickering like a wire
and humming electric
boy of paper skin burned thin

on the sunrise down the street burning burning matchstick boy
asphalt rising garbage burning boy of trash and a pile of bones
a pile of ash-burnt bones left over grinning grinning red
all down the avenue.

two

so you're a burning bush so you're beautiful.
so you're laying out on the bed crucified with a garden of ribs
cigarette butts all between
it's a graveyard of ashes and you're smiling.
never mind those teeth.
never mind the things in between.
caught-up birds and such.
all the dead things in between.
my hand is there
my fingers are caught up in those bones
broken soft woven through your ribs.
those are my fingers/these are your ribs.
aren't we bones
aren't you bones and I am flesh
melting into you and you still smile, you still smile without flesh
you still smile only bones
only.
still you're proud of this chest, these ribs, this graveyard
garbage heap, cigarettes beautiful
that's you.
that's you smiling.

you're a garbage heap burning and I'm melting into your chest.

three: grant h---

[I'll be your skars boy I'll bleed you dry]

I'll bleed you dry this terrible skeleton
this starving boy stretched ribcage
this dying brightly burning thing
press my palm against it
just because.

feel
all you are is paper.
all you are is crumpled, in a fist
tossed aside in a cage of ribs

what do you remember
it's the paper of your skin
and your voice reverberating through the class curves of a bottle
black around your hips
your swagger walk rambling down the avenue
walking like a thing barely alive
a skeleton before the femur detaches and the whole thing goes to hell
skull rolling down the saint paul street.

it's you
it's you striding bowlegged laughing
hands in your back pockets head on fire laughing
that's the boy grant h--- that's the voice in my head saying now girl
saying soft whisper of matted hair and ribcage dance into the sun.

feel my paper beautiful let's fill you full of skars
cigarettes leaving black kisses
rising swollen skin to meet the dawn
rising flesh in the pattern for my fingertips
it pleases you i'll touch these wounds
you've opened for me i'll put my fingers in
i'll touch your insides
i'll burn my whole through your paper and tug out your heart, grant h---
i'll pull apart your paper soul
run my razor tongue down your arms
and you'll be my bedside corpse
you'll be my open body
my fountain blooming gray
ribcage smiling paper perfect the whole thing
dripping red in soft matted hair
smile hanging crooked like a broken hand.